Pedro Sánchez's response to Judge Peinado's decision on the eve of an election nomination was: first a letter and then a photo. The snapshot took place last Wednesday in Benalmádena, when the president of the government appeared hand in hand at the PSOE meeting with his partner, Begoña Gómez, called to testify as a defendant on July 5, in the middle of a bizarre instruction that the magistrate had decided. support in the middle of the election campaign.
“We thank you for your sincere support, Begoña and I,” began the leader of the Socialists before an audience that was particularly enthusiastic and excited after the latest legal news. During his speech, Sánchez again shouted out against “the mud machines” and the “dirty wars” that are trying to “overthrow the progressive government.”
“There is a thread, a link between Abascal, Feijóo, now Alvise, Hazte Oír, Manos Médicas and the rest of the mud machine. And we know what its sole purpose is: to defeat and overthrow the government that increases the SMI while creating stable employment, the government that revalues pensions while filling the pension piggy bank, a feminist government,” he said.
And it was then that the leader of the Socialists drew the line that outlines the dichotomy in which the PSOE is resorting to face the challenge from the right in the latter part of the campaign. A whole referendum between good and evil, between order and the threat 'of the far-right international': 'Either you are on the side of Milei, with Abascal, with Netanyahu, with Aznar and with Feijóo, or you are on the good side of the history that is where social democracy is in Spain and in Europe,” he said.
In reality, the PSOE is witnessing Judge Peinado's maneuvers as the spearhead of the right-wing offensive against Pedro Sánchez and his partner in the latter part of the campaign. After the last moves of the magistrate, who invaded with his maneuver on the eve of the elections, the Socialists are convinced that the head of court number 41 has gone so far overboard that he would even turn the case into an asset for his country can make. own interests.
“It is rude and in my opinion it will turn against those who think that this is the center of citizens' attention,” said Teresa Ribera on Wednesday in an interview on Cadena Ser, taking the opportunity to make a statement. to make a call. “A state of mind is responded to with voices. What we are seeing, the attack, the message of progressive citizens rising up against this lack of acceptance of the election results, is being answered at the ballot box,” Ribera said.
The idea is the same as that the president of the government himself put forward in the letter he published after his partner was summoned as a defendant on Tuesday. “Given that they are trying to interfere with the June 9 election results, hopefully their promoters [el Sr. Feijóo y el Sr. Abascal]find the response they deserve at the elections: condemnation and rejection of their bad arts,” Pedro Sánchez said in his letter.
During the meeting last Wednesday in Benalmádena, together with Begoña Gómez, he said it even more clearly: “I ask all people on the left, all progressive people, to vote en masse for the Socialist Party so that they win. The healthy and social progress and the dirty politics and cuts of that far-right international are being defeated.”
The message, which contains a clear response to the judge's actions described as a mere transmission belt for the strategies of the PP and Vox, is also a direct interpellation on the reaction of the progressive electorate en masse. And that is where Ferraz Street's political strategy is heading to face the final twists and turns in the race to the Europeans: turning a situation of apparent vulnerability into a political opportunity. Simply Pedro Sánchez's specialty.
The speech has to do with taking advantage of the right's offensive on land, sea and air to launch something akin to an electoral takeover bid on the left. And thus convert the appointment at the ballot box into a referendum on the rules of the democratic game. A strategy aimed at challenging the entire progressive electorate who believe that the figure of the President and his family environment are the object of an offensive aimed only at overthrowing the coalition government. And that is why the approach, explained by the executive branch itself, transcends the voters of some acronyms and becomes a claim on the group of voters who once supported the progressive forces that made the investiture possible.
Clash with Sumar
A strategy that is its coalition partners they see it as an insult. If the tacit pact of the PSOE and Sumar before the general elections was to 'take care' of the coalition and respect their own political space, in this dog-eat-dog battle between Pedro Sánchez and the right and in a full-scale judicial offensive against him A few unwritten rules have been blown up.
The members of Yolanda Díaz are aware of the movement and the difficulties they have been experiencing since the beginning of the legislature to make electorally profitable the measures approved by the government and which they initially included in the coalition agreement. It had already happened in previous years with the increase in the international minimum wage or the labor reform. And that is why, after a series of elections that did not go well for the left-wing coalition, they changed the strategy towards the governing partner for weeks.
The election campaign coincided with a shift in Sumar's speeches towards the PSOE. If on June 23 the motto was to defend the coalition government, on this occasion those of Yolanda Díaz have found it easy to highlight the disagreements with a party that agrees with them on progressive measures in Spain, but at the European level tends to agree with the Conservatives on measures such as the immigration pact or the new tax rules.
With this strategy, they plan to reverse the data coming from the surveys that indicate a significant transfer of votes from Sumar to the PSOE from the general elections to this appointment, leaks that also occur towards Podemos on the left. A few months ago, polls placed Sumar at 10% of the vote, which has been reduced to an average of 6% in recent weeks.